The UK will join the US and other allies to create a sea corridor to deliver aid directly to Gaza, Lord David Cameron has said.
Britain’s Foreign Secretary made the announcement after US President Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address that he is ordering his country’s troops to build a port on the coast of Gaza to bring relief to the population there.
The move comes after growing concerns about the level of aid reaching Gaza across land borders, with international organizations warning of imminent famine if the current restrictions imposed by Israel on the territory continue.
Lord Cameron said the UK would work with the US to provide aid by sea.
“People in Gaza are in desperate humanitarian need,” Cameron said in a message posted on X (formerly Twitter) this morning, following Biden’s speech last night.
The UK will join the US and other allies to create a sea corridor to deliver aid directly to Gaza, Lord David Cameron has said.
“Together with the United States, the United Kingdom and its partners have announced that we will open a sea corridor to deliver aid directly to Gaza,” he added.
Cameron also pressed Israel to “allow more trucks into Gaza as the quickest way to get aid to those who need it” amid the country’s continuing offensive in the coastal strip, launched in response to the attack by the Hamas terrorist group. on October 7.
His comments came after Biden announced that the United States would build a temporary dock off the coast of Gaza to allow for large-scale aid delivery.
‘Almost two million more Palestinians under bombardment or displaced, houses destroyed, neighborhoods in ruins, cities in ruins, families without food, water or medicine. “It’s heartbreaking,” Biden told the US Congress on Thursday night.
“Tonight, I am ordering the US military to lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary dock in the Mediterranean, off the coast of Gaza, that can receive large ships carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelters,” he said.
Following Cameron’s comments on Friday, EU President Ursula Von Der Leyen said a humanitarian catastrophe was unfolding in Gaza.
He said a pilot of food aid collected by a charity group and supported by the United Arab Emirates could leave Cyprus on Friday from the port of Larnaca in Cyprus.
British aid packages have previously been airdropped into Gaza in a joint operation with the Jordanian army, and the Government has continued to work to find alternative routes for supplies to reach the territory.
The UK Government has also called for a “humanitarian pause” in the fighting to allow aid to reach Gaza and hostages held by Hamas to be released.
Last week, the House of Commons International Development Committee warned that a famine in Gaza would be inevitable without changes that allow more aid to reach the region, home to 2.4 million people before the war.
The all-party committee said any ceasefire of less than 30 days would not be enough to get enough food into Gaza, while US Vice President Kamala Harris has suggested a six-week ceasefire is within reach.
The move comes after growing concerns about the level of aid reaching Gaza by land, with international organizations warning of imminent famine if current border restrictions imposed by Israel in the territory continue. In the photo: Aid arrives in Gaza, March 8.
Parachutes drop supplies in the northern Gaza Strip, seen from southern Israel, Friday, March 8, 2024.
After months of warnings about the risk of famine under Israel’s bombings, offensives and siege, reports say children are starting to die.
At least 20 people have died from malnutrition and dehydration in northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan and Shifa hospitals, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
Most of the dead are children, including some as young as 15, as well as a 72-year-old man.
Particularly vulnerable children are also reportedly starting to succumb in the south, where access to help is more regular.
At the Emirati Hospital in Rafah, 16 premature babies have died from causes related to malnutrition in the past five weeks, one of the senior doctors told The Associated Press.
“The child deaths we feared are here,” Adele Khodr, UNICEF’s Middle East chief, said in a statement earlier this week.
Malnutrition generally takes time to cause death and affects children and the elderly first, but other factors can play a role.
Malnourished mothers have difficulties breastfeeding their children.
Israel largely shut down the entry of food, water, medicine and other supplies after launching its assault on Gaza following the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, allowing only a small passage of aid trucks through two crosses in the south.
Israel has blamed growing hunger in Gaza on UN agencies, saying they are failing to distribute supplies piling up at Gaza crossings.
UNRWA, the largest U.N. agency in Gaza, says Israel restricts some goods and imposes cumbersome inspections that delay entry.
In addition, distribution within Gaza has been paralyzed.
Britain’s Foreign Secretary made the announcement after US President Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address (pictured last night) that he is ordering his country’s troops to build a port in the coast of Gaza to bring relief to the population there.
U.N. officials say Israeli forces regularly turn away convoys, the military often denies safe passage amid fighting and starving Palestinians snatch aid from trucks en route to delivery points.
Facing growing alarm, Israel bowed to American and international pressure and said this week it will open aid crossings directly to northern Gaza and allow maritime shipments.
Conditions in the north, largely under Israeli control for months, have become desperate. Israeli forces have reduced entire districts of Gaza City and its surroundings to rubble. Still, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain.
It is almost impossible to find meat, milk, vegetables and fruits, according to several residents who spoke to the AP. The few items in the stores are random and sold at hugely inflated prices: mainly nuts, snacks and spices. People have taken barrels of chocolate from bakeries and are selling small quantities of it.
Most people eat a weed that grows in vacant lots, known as ‘khubaiza’.
UNRWA says Israeli authorities have not allowed it to deliver supplies to the north since January 23.
The World Food Organization, which had suspended deliveries for security reasons, said the military forced its first northbound convoy in two weeks to turn back on Tuesday.
When the Israeli army organized a food delivery to Gaza City last week, troops guarding the convoy opened fire – at what they perceived as a threat, the army says – as thousands of hungry Palestinians mobbed the trucks.
About 120 people died in the shooting and were also trampled.
Israel’s military said Friday that its initial investigation into the incident found that troops “precisely fired” at the approaching suspects.
World leaders had called for an investigation into the Feb. 29 incident when the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip said Israeli forces opened fire on people searching for food in a convoy of trucks.
The Israeli military said at the time that a “stampede” occurred as thousands of people surrounded the convoy.
Releasing its initial findings on Friday, the military said in a statement that the “command review” found that “troops did not fire on the humanitarian convoy.”
Smoke rises into the sky following an explosion in the Gaza Strip, seen from southern Israel, on Friday, March 8, 2024.
He added, however, that they “shot several suspects who approached nearby forces and posed a threat to them.”
Witnesses said thousands of people had rushed toward aid trucks in Gaza City and that soldiers “shot into the crowd when people got too close to the tanks.”
A UN team visited Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital the next day and reported seeing “a large number of gunshot wounds” among dozens of Palestinian patients.
Meanwhile, fresh food supplies in the southern city of Rafah have dwindled, while its population has risen to more than one million with displaced residents. The main things available are canned goods, often found in care packages.